


glory to the night (it shows me what i am)

by constanted



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: 50 100 word moments, Angst, Anxiety, Character Study, F/F, Found Family, Friendship, Gee Bee! How Come Your Mom Lets You Write Eighty-Seven Lucretia-Centric Angsty Fics!, Gen, Lesbianism, and many more! - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-16 23:00:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13063974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constanted/pseuds/constanted
Summary: Perhaps it is her destiny to hurt without intention.(or: lucretia, in fifty moments)





	glory to the night (it shows me what i am)

**Author's Note:**

> I Should Be Studying For Finals But Instead I Dictated This Into Notes While I Was Driving To School
> 
> uh.
> 
> tws for mentions of sex, death&blood&whathaveyou, weird feelings about parents, sad lesbians, and depression.
> 
> title is from 'thursday girl' by mitski.

i.

She comes out quiet, but her mother is screaming. She is the youngest of three daughters, and her mother is old—too old for another child, too old for a safe birth, but she is another child despite that.

An Istusian cleric rushes into the room and puts a blessing on her heart while her mother weeps in pain, screams out her name—an intelligent name for an intelligent girl.

Her mother hurt, then, she thinks later, recalling the story her oldest sister told her.Perhaps it is her destiny to hurt without intention.

She’ll think, perhaps it was destiny. 

 

ii.

She learns to read when she is three years old, warm suns on her back as she traces her finger down words that she has heard a million times before.

Maybe not a million, but something close. She does not quite understand what a million is, yet.

“Don’t you want to play with the other children?” asks her mother, but she does not listen, because she is so enamored with the contour of _the_.

He mother sighs, says, “Lucy, darling.”  
  
“Not Lucy, s’Lucreza.”

“Lucretia, c’mon,” an exhale.

She keeps reading, moves onto _suns_ , then _violet_ , then _home_ , then _home_ again. 

 

iii.

She makes a friend on her first day of proper school. He does not go to school with her. He goes to the other school, the one across the street for the children from families her mother calls _troublesome_ , and he is bad at reading and he’s loud but otherwise perfectly nice.

“I like dogs,” he says.

“Me too,” she nods her head, and then, “Why are you on our playground?”  
  
“Space themed.” he says, and that’s fair, “I like space. Wanna go to a moon.”  
  
“There aren’t any dogs there.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“They run off of it!” 

He laughs.

 

iv.

Maggie starts going to her school when she is ten. She is two years ahead of him in classes and twenty days younger.

“I got beat up,” he says, like he’s proud of it, “And my mom got a job as a nurse here, so.”  
  
“That’s nice. I like your mom.”

She starts drawing his mom with her left hand, because she’s been practicing that, lately.

“That’s cool,” he says.

“Yes,” she agrees, and then she jokes, “I’m very cool.”  
  
“Yeah,” he says, sighs “Is Andrei Whitsnout cute?”  
  
“Gross, no,” she says, “He’s a _boy_.”  
  
“I’m a boy!”  
  
“You’re _different_!”

 

v.

She has her first crush when she is twelve on a tiefling girl who is in the school band and who sits next to Maggie during performances. Her given name is Maria Preston, but she is thinking that she’ll change her name to Melody.

She’s very pretty, and she has a laugh that makes Lucretia feel warm. Lucretia is starting at the university next year, because she is prodigal, says her mother, so she only has a few months to make her move. Like they do in the romance movies. She teaches herself Prestidigitation, makes sparks, and she gets rejected.

 

vi.

The university is in the capital city, and it is _very_ prestigious and it is important that she goes. Her sisters are still in attendance, studying schools of magic that are of no interest to her.

So she studies literature. She takes abjuration classes on the side, studies some healing magic, studies bardic arts—ends up possessed, which is more normal than it sounds, and ends up multi-classing as a bard and a warlock.

“Cool,” says Maggie, when she calls him.

“I’m very cool,” she says.

“The  _coolest.”_

She laughs, says “I’ll send you something enchanted in the mail.”

 

vii.

She is eighteen when she first falls in love. A recruiter from the Institute, an elf, red hair and dangerous eyes. She calls Lucretia “babe,” and Lucretia, who is on her way to submit another manuscript, decides that she’s going to apply to the Institute, despite her literary dreams.

“I’m a writer,” she says, smiling like an idiot, “If you’re looking for any of those.”  
  
“We’re lookin’ for anybody,” says the elf, and she laughs, and it’s _beautiful._  
  
“I have to go,” says Lucretia, because she does.

“I’ll put in a good word for you.”

She’s already in too deep.

 

viii.

She is nineteen when she has her first kiss. It’s with a university student who works at the coffee shop she frequents—she’s working part-time for the Institute, part-time as a ghostwriter, and the shop’s for her moments of calm.

The girl’s sweet and gentle, but boring and safe, and Lucretia has had enough boring and safe to last her a lifetime.

Her mother fell in love with boring and safe; as did her sisters—rich men with no personalities, with no interest.

She is not in love with this coffee shop girl.

It’s a good kiss regardless.

 

ix.

Davenport interviews her the day before her twentieth birthday. She runs into Maggie immediately beforehand—

“Yeah, they need a security guy, and I’m—“  
  
“I’m so glad to see you,” she says, and she hugs him.

“You’re gonna get in,” he says, “I know you will. He’ll _love you_.”  
  
“Because I’m the coolest.”  
  
“Absolutely the coolest! And he liked _me_ , which, how can’t he, but—“  
  
“Insufferable,” she tuts.

“He’ll love you, Lucretia, I promise! Let’s fuckin go to _space!”  
_

Davenport sighs when she walks in.

“You know him?”  


“We’re old friends.”  
  
“He’s a lot.”  
  
“He’s worth it, though.”

“And you?”  


“Well.”

 

x.

It’s Barry Bluejeans—he was her T.A., once, in a throwaway necromancy course—who tells her she’s on the mission.

 

“The twins, uh, plus Bluejeans, that’s me, Burnsides, Davenport, Highchurch, Olatunji.”  
  
“Are you kidding?”  
  
“I—I wouldn’t _joke_ about that, Luce—“  
  
“Lucretia, not Lucy.”  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
“Not—not your fault, but— _congratulations!_ ”  
  
“Also to you! You know the other human?”  
  
“Yeah, we, uh, we grew up near each other. He’s—a lot. But he’s good.”  
  
“Okay, okay, so it’s—the twins are a lot, too. Big personalities.”  
  
“Lup and her brother?”  
  
“Yeah. Highchurch’s a lot—”  
  
“So am I,” she decides.

 

xi.

Her mother does not want her to go. Nor does her father, nor do her sisters, but her mother is the most adamant about it.

“You could die,” she says, “And you have so much potential, Lucy—“  


“Lucretia-not-Lucy,” she mutters, “You gave me the name, might as well use it.”  
  
“You’re too young to do this—“  
  
“And I wasn’t too young to attend the most advanced—“  
  
“That’s different—“  
  
“I published my first book at age fifteen. I’ve achieved my potential.”  
  
Her mother hugs her tight.

“I worry for you.”  
  
She is hurting her mother, she thinks.

Oh well.

 

xii.

When she sees her home drown, she is twenty, and she does not cry.

_Solis II_ , she writes, crosses out _is_ and writes out _was_ in its place, and then she stops to get herself a glass of water.

Magnus says, “My mom was sick anyway. Terminal,” and then he starts crying again.

“I never told my sisters goodbye. If that helps.”  
  
“It doesn’t,” and he chuckles, “But I appreciate the effort.”  
  
They’re alone on the ship. He’s considering fighting a bear on this new world, and she’s—

She’s not sure what to do next. She’s not sure at all.

 

xiii.

So she writes. So she turns twenty one again and again, and she writes it down each time.

On her fourth twenty-first birthday, she has sex for the first time. She’s embarrassed by it, and it’s not too thrilling. The girl is nice, safe, boring, and—

Lup congratulates her in the morning, stupidly, annoyingly, and Lucretia can’t help but wish that the night had been spent with her instead.

“Whazzgoinon?” asks Magnus, walking in on Lup’s teasing session.

“Cretia just walk-of-shamed back here.”  
  
Magnus laughs, joins in.

‘It was boring,” says Lucretia, and she writes that down.

 

xiv.

She dies in cycle nine, shot in the stomach and bleeding out before one of the more competent healers can get to her. Her spells all fail, and she’s vomiting and she’s alone and she’s so, so afraid, and who the hell will record the mission, if not her? 

And then there’s darkness.

She’s the third one to die—they’d made _bets_ , after Barry came back in cycle six, about who’d go next, about what order they’d go down. Lup said it’d lighten the mood.

Everyone had put Lucretia down as “never dying.”  
  
She’s always been one to defy expectations.

 

xv.

When she comes back, Lup gives her a hug, and her skin is colder than Lucretia expects. They’ve hugged before, but she notices that in a coherent thought for the first time.

And Lup says, “I’ve missed you, babe,” and Lucretia dies a second time, right about then.

She hates crushes. Hates them, hates them, hates them.

Especially when she’s trapped in a time loop with one of them for eternity.

At least it gives her an eternity to get over it, though. That’s nice.

It still fucking sucks, though.

Taako figures the crush out and refused to shut up. 

 

xvi.

She feels her heart break in the beach year, which is stupid. She sees love blossom between two of her favorite people in the world, and it makes her angry.

Merle punches her arm gently, says they’ll settle down eventually, when this is all over. She can find a nice girl and she can be happy and she’ll forget that she ever had any feelings for some coworker.

The thing is, she doesn’t want to forget. 

She picks them a bouquet and tells them that she hopes they’re happy.

That when this is over, they will still be as happy.

 

xvii.

Lucretia kills for the first time when she is twenty-one for the twenty-seventh time.

She feels sick afterward, feels wrong, but then—

Then, she doesn’t.

“It feels normal,” she tells Lup, and Lup rubs her shoulder.

“I know.”  
  
“Should it?”  
  
“No, but it does, and that’s—that’s—not okay, but it’s something.”

“I feel like I’m tainted,” she says.

“You didn’t mean to kill.”  
  
“I didn’t ever mean to do much of anything.”  
  
“Well,” Lup touches her hand, “I don’t think any of us ever really did. You think you’d make it this far?”  
  
“Never,” she says, “Never.”  


 

xviii.

She hates sports, but there’s something charming about seeing Magnus wrangle a gaggle of kids around and admit that he loves them.

Magnus’ mother was a good woman, a kind woman, and she raised a good man. Perhaps that skill, parenting, is genetic.

Were their world more permanent, she thinks, he’d be a good father.

She’s terrible with the kids, and she decides that being good at raising children definitely is genetic.

So, after a bit, she avoids the kids. She runs off with Barry to explore the academic scene here, and she thinks about that instead of the rest.

 

xix. 

Merle being gone is harder than she wants it to be. But she writes down his stories and doesn’t stop him from going because he says it’s important to the mission, and saving the world is the most important thing in the world.

But he is gone.

He is a hole in her heart, and he is always gone before she can tell him that. He is gone, he is gone, he is gone, and she almost hates him for it.

But his stories—

They’re important stories. They’re the stories she wanted to be telling. They’re the stories worth telling.

 

xx.

She paints home, in the conservatory, because she doesn’t know what else to paint. The details slip away from her sometimes—they are worth remembering, they are perfect for this.

“It’s lovely,” says the teacher, “Why are there two suns?”  
  
“Because Solis II is—“ and she corrects herself, “Solis II was a two-starred planet. One star orbited another, and we orbited the orbiting star, and our two moons orbited us, and it was always so _light_ , there,” and she sighs, content at the memory.

“Hurts my eyes,” says another student, “But it’s nice.”  
  
“Bright feels like home,” she concludes.

 

xxi.

Fisher, Magnus calls this beautiful thing.

She falls in love, in the same way he does with every dog he’s ever met. It sings when she draws near, and she plays it music, which it eats up and which she forgets.

She feeds it her shitty, shitty love poems from decades ago.

Weird how she doesn’t forget those ones. Weird how she remembers the music that Magnus forgets, after some time, weird how she remembers everything.

So she helps him take the fish with them. Helps him build a tank, and she sketches it out, takes notes on its behavior.

 

xxii.

“There’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while,” says Lup, and she’s touching Lucretia’s cheek, and Lucretia feels like she’s dying—

“May I?” she asks.

“Please,” Lucretia feels like Maria-maybe-Melody Preston is about to reject her again, like she’s twelve and blushing and stupid, and—

And Lup kisses her. Just once, just—there.

And she kisses Lup back, says, “Is this allowed?”  
  
“Of course it is, babe—“  


“I’ve been in love since I met you,” Lucretia says, rushed, breathless and completely adrenaline.

“Lucretia, that’s so _cute_ ,” and Lup moves one of Lucretia’s braids out of her face.

 

xxiii.

This is what being alone feels like:

She is going to die here.

She is never going to see anyone again.

The last thing she ever said to Magnus was an insult—a joking one, but an insult nonetheless.

She cannot fly a ship.

They left her here on purpose because they hate her because she’s useless because she deserves to be alone because she was never meant to go on this mission because her mother was right because she’s useless because she’s because she’s because she’s—

She hasn’t written in two months. She’s running out of anxiety pills

Gods.

 

xxiv.

This is what being alone feels like:

She is telling stories for food and shelter and scrap metal.   


She is not going to fucking die here.

She is going to see her family again.

She does not need anyone.   


She can fly a fucking ship.

They will _have_ to love her after this, after she saves them, because she’s finally fucking useful. Because she is strong by herself. Because she can do anything regardless of the odds.

She writes every day. She rations out her anxiety pills.

They hold her after it all.

She makes it. She fucking makes it.

 

xxv.

“I’m going to become a lich,” says Lup, like it’s nothing. They’re in Lucretia’s quarters, halfway through a movie, “Me and Barry think we can figure out a solution.”  
  
“Barry literally taught me in college that liches are always corrupted.”  
  
“And if so, we reset.”  
  
“And then you die again, and you get corrupted again—“  
  
“We have a plan, Lucretia.”  
  
Fantasy Natasha Lyonne starts crying.

“I have reason to be wary.”  
  
“He and I—we love so much—we think we can sustain ourselves on that love. And on our love for the team—“  
  
“No lich has survived on love.”  


 

xxvi.

But they do, and it’s a miracle. Lup is a miracle. Barry is a miracle.

When they are dead, they can hear her speak the static that Fisher makes in everyone else’s minds. Davenport pleads for an explanation, but she can’t give a good one without going into static.

She writes: I have decided that we are calling Fisher’s species the _Voidfish._

She writes: It may not be my decision to make, but I have made it regardless.

She writes: Somebody needs to remember it.

She writes: And so that’s what we’ll remember it by.

She writes: I have changed.

 

xxvii.

Lup’s idea is wrong.

That is what keeps hitting her at night, that is what keeps _haunting her,_ and Lup is a miracle, but Lup is so, so fucking wrong.

She starts a new plan at night, during one AMs that she’d usually spend talking to Magnus about used-to-bes or stargazing with Merle or talking to Taako or driving with Davenport or writing with Barry or loving with Lup.

Her relic is hard to make war with, but people still want it. It keeps people in or out, and that’s _useful_.

Faerûn deserves better than it.

She acts.

 

xxviii.

Lup is gone. She could have expected as much, but she still weeps for her, still feels the ache of loss like it is killing her.

So now, she definitely has to act. She crosses out important details like it’s her everything, leaves the rest to burn. She does some tests—not things that they’ll notice missing.

But they’ll thank her, she thinks. She can let them be happy, for once.

She wonders if this is what her mother met by wasted potential, this decision.

But it is her destiny to help, she decides. It is her destiny to survive.

 

xxix.

“I’m Lucy,” she tells Julia, who is familiar in a way Lucretia can’t quite place, “My brother has been hit with a memory curse, and the sight of me or any of our family will hurt him. He is a carpenter, and I heard that your shop needs assistance?”  
  
“An assistant,” says Julia, “Not a carpenter. But he can work up.”  
  
“Oh, of course. I just need a home for him.”  
  
“We can handle that,” says Julia, “When can you bring him in?”  
  
“Friday,” she says, and, just like that, she knows when she will act.

Vomit floods her mouth.

 

xxx.

Taako spots her drawing up a poster for a show.

“You good, pumpkin?” he asks. He’s got circles under his eyes.

“Just—I have an idea. It’s a surprise. For—“  
  
“I—I don’t care, right now.”  
  
“I know you don’t.”

“Barry thinks he has an idea where she is, we’re gonna be on the deck if you wanna—“  
  
“No, no, it’s okay. I—I need to finish this. You need the fresh air, though, please, go get it. Please.”  
  
“See ya, then. I’ll tell you if we need you.”  
  
“Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.”  
  
“Alright, then,” he exits.

 

xxxi.

Magnus is on the ground, passed out, tears still running down his face.

She falls to the ground, pulls her knees in close to her, and breathes. Lets herself be weak for ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, and, bam, it’s showtime. Time to be strong again, Lucretia, time to save them all and save the world.

She blocks out her emotions, after that. She’s got to survive, that’s the m.o., she’s got to. If she doesn’t, nobody can. If not her, who?

She puts the wooden duck into her rucksack, and she starts flying.

 

xxxii.

She sets rules for herself.

  1. She cannot inoculate any of them. Even Lup, if Lup is still alive. Even Davenport, if his emptiness overwhelms her.
  2. She cannot allow them in.
  3. She cannot fall in love again.
  4. She will let them remember when she is done saving the world.
  5. She will save the world.
  6. She cannot let any of them get hurt.
  7. She has to take care of them.
  8. She cannot let herself feel weak again.
  9. She won’t let the Light take her like it has taken so many.
  10. She will fix this mess on her own. She really, really will.



 

xxxiii.

Here is what she tells Dr. Miller, the planar scientist with whom she is exchanging information:

Her name is Lucretia Olatunji. She is twenty-one, nearly twenty-two years old. She is a writer, and she is an artist, and she is a warlock, and she is a bard, and she has survived more than Dr. Miller could ever imagine.

Here is what Dr. Miller tells her in response:

Well, Lucretia Olatunji, aren’t you a thing and a half, then.

She says, “I am. I’m pretty fucking cool, doctor. Some have even said the coolest.”  
  
Dr. Miller says, “Alright, then.”

 

xxxiv.

She turns twenty-two for the first and last time on a Saturday. She spends it with Davenport, drinking wine. He hasn’t lost his taste for the good stuff—there’s something she can’t take away from him. 

She tells him, “I’m going to save the world.”  
  
He says, “I.”  
  
She says, “Yes, and you too.”  
  
She does not sleep that night. She does not sleep much at all, but this lack of sleep is something else entirely.

She lies awake quiet, but she hears her Captain screaming. She is the youngest of his crew, and she has ruined him entirely.

 

xxxv.

She breaks rule three with Maureen, because Maureen is not safe, nor is she boring. She is smart, she is mature, she is—

She is not always good. She sends inventions to warlords for profit, she—

But she’s damn good at making Lucretia feel alive again.

“You’re terrible,” Lucretia says, post-sex, “So much brain, but you’re hurting people.”  
  
“You’re naïve,” says Maureen.

“I’ve been accused of many things, but never naivety.”  
  
“You think your friends’ll forgive you? We’ve all done things we’re not proud of, Lucy.”  
  
Maureen takes a drag from her cigarette.

“Lucretia, not Lucy,” she says, exhales.

 

xxxvi.

“Weird how you’re only four years older than me, but you’re dating my _mom_.”  
  
“Your mom, who had you at fifteen, Lucas. Don’t blow this out of proportion.”  
  
“Your math’s wrong.”  
  
“It’s really not.”  
  
“You’re doing it wrong.”  
  
“Perhaps in your eyes. There are easier ways to do it.”  
  
“And there are _right_ ways to do it.”  
  
“You’re a prick,” she concludes, and he leaves. She hates that kid. Hates him, hates him, hates him, wishes she never had to deal with him again. He doesn’t respect her _period_ , no matter what she does, and—

She needs to be better.

 

xxxvii.

Here is how to help a revolution:

  1. Steal your rich scientist girlfriend’s inventions and send it to your childhood friend whose memory you have erased.
  2. Send threatening messages to a small-city dictator.
  3. Take back that weapon of yours that he stole, depleting his power.
  4. Profit.



Here is how to end the first exclusive long-term relationship you’ve had in your entire century of living and unliving and living and unliving:

  1. See the list above.
  2. Get caught in the act.
  3. Refuse to apologize.
  4. Tell her that her son’s a prick.
  5. Profit.



  
Lucretia is very good at all of these things.

 

xxxviii.

“And this,” says the chef, with a flourish of his wand, “Is how you _fucking flip an omelette._ Can I have a volunteer?”  
  
He really is a showman. She’d be proud, were he not so empty-eyed.

“You,” he says, “In the glasses.”  
  
_Me_? She mouths, but, no, it’s worse, somehow.

Barry Bluejeans, confused, unchanged, stumbles onto a makeshift stage in the middle of Neverwinter.

“What’s your name, darling?”  
  
“Barry.”

“What brings you to this show?”

“A magic coin with my voice told me to find you—“  
  
Taako’s eyebrows furrow, but he laughs after a beat.

“Ain’t that the _cutest_!”

 

xxxix.

Here is how to crash a wedding:

  1. Show up.
  2. Drink.
  3. Pretend to know the couple.
  4. Do not fucking interact with both of them at the same time, Lucretia, you piece of shit idiot, he would not have invited you if he remembered you. Do not talk to them.



  
She truly is a rebel, isn’t she?

“I’m so happy for you two,” she says, and she hands them flowers.

“Thank you for coming,” says Magnus, “It’s nice to see you!”  
  
“And you too.”  
  
He doesn’t know her, he’s lying to save face, because he assumes he forgot her.

He assumes right.

 

xl.

 

She meets Cam at the wedding, and she inoculates him and asks him for help.

She has heard of Wonderland, has heard of what it contains. So has he. He goes along with her, and it is hell. It is hell, it is hell, it is hell. She loses her dexterity, loses her memories, loses twenty fucking years, and she deserves it, doesn’t she?  
  
“You deserve it,” says Lydia, “You’ve been hogging that youth for a _century_ now.”

She runs.

She runs, and she runs, and she’s hurt someone again.

She prays for Cam’s safety, and tries to forget him.

 

xli.

“Maureen, I need you to build me the moon.”  
  
“Bit too late for a romantic gesture like that, especially considering how _you_ ended us for that failed revolution.”  
  
“Failed?”  
  
“The town is burning, Lucy, haven’t you heard?”  
  
“Is he—“  
  
“Is he the only thing you care about?”  
  
“I’ve compartmentalized.”  
  
“ _Clearly_. He’s alive, but at the cost of his family’s lives.”  
  
“Yeah,” she says, “That sounds about right.”

“So, a moon, then.”  
  
“I need a base. Need help for the Relics. Can’t keep on hurting so-called expendables. Gotta make a team, gotta lead, I—“  
  
“You sound older.”  
  
“I am, Maureen.”  
  


xlii.

Killian and Carey are young mercs that are looking for work, and Lucretia adores both of them. She hires them on the spot, puts them on a team with a Dionysus-worshipping paladin named Boyland, and bam, there’s a team.

Avi is an engineer with a good sense of humor. Johann’s a bard with _genuine emotion_ in his work. Bane is powerful. Leon is almost scarily knowledgable, and so on, and so on, and so on.

And Garfield’s there, too.

The Bureau starts in earnest eight and a half years after she erased them all. 

And then, there’s an egg.

 

xliii.

“Gundren Rockseeker has hired four men to work for him,” she tells Killian, “Do not hurt them.”  
  
“No promises.”  
  
“Do _not_ hurt them.”  
  
She brings three back, says, “Only found three men, want me to send ‘em back? Elf and a human and a dwarf.”  
  
“Magnus or Barry Magnus or Barry Magnus or Barry,” she whispers to herself, once Killian leaves her office.

She hates herself for being relieved that it’s Magnus, but—she knows Barry’s still out there. She knows that he can find her if she lets him find her. 

And it’s good to see those faces again.

 

xliv.

Time goes on. She feels fucking haunted, fucking _possessed_ by guilt as they help her out. Feels sick as they call her Madam Director, feels sicker as they call her Lucretia without the century of use in their mouths.

Merle pats her back in the bubble back to the moon from the spa. She’s drunk, and she cries for the first time in years, says, “I can’t keep doing this, Merle. I can’t. I—It all hurts. So much, I miss everyone, and—“  
  
He shushes her, says, “You’re saving the world.”  
  
“I’m saving the fucking wo—world.”  
  
“Hell yeah, girly.”

 

xlv.

Someone has broken into Fisher’s tank. Probably Barry, again, nothing another ward can’t fix. She’s too tired to deal with that, now. She’s too tired to deal with anything, now.

Wonderland’s next. She doesn’t want to hurt them like she’s been hurt. She doesn’t want them to suffer for something near-impossible to reach.

But they’ve always defied the odds, just like her.

So she sends them off, and she ignores the fear that surrounds her after doing that. She sends them off, and she prays for sunrise, prays for their return, prays for—

And Magnus, she hears, is dead.

 

xlvi.

But he isn’t, of course he isn’t, he’s alive, and he’s pointing a sword at her, and the world is ending, and Taako doesn’t _care_ , and—

And so she disappears.

When she reappears, Magnus and Lup, _Lup_ , and Merle are holding her, and they are telling her that she is forgiven, she is always forgiven.

Davenport and Taako do not need to.

Barry smiles at her.

Four out of seven isn’t bad, as far as forgiveness goes.

She needs to save the world, though, and not focus on this. She needs to save the world, she needs to, and then—

 

xlvii.

And then, she does.

She expected that she’d be dead, after this, and hates that she isn’t. She honestly should be. 

Barry and Lup bring her meals, and Magnus spends free time with her, and Carey and Killian tell her that she’s their hero, and it’s all very nice but—

She’s really not supposed to be here, anymore. She’s served her purpose. She’s saved the world, she’s saved her family, she’s _done_. She’s got nothing else to do. She writes, sure, helps write about the Day and about the Bureau and about Home and about—

But what is the _point_?

 

xlviii.

Lup helps her visit her mother. She puts on glamour charms so she looks how she is supposed to look, looks like she is thirty-three and not depressed at all, no ma’am.

“So,” says her mother, “Saved the world and back to brag, huh?”  
  
“How is the recovery going?”  
  
“Poorly. And for your new home?”  
  
“Well. I’m running a humanitarian organization to assist in it.”  


“That’s good of you.”  
  
“I’m very good.”  
  
Her mother laughs.

“What is my potential?” she asks, “You never shut up about it.”  
  
“Good,” says her mother, “You have so much potential for good, Lucretia.”

 

xlix.

 

When Magnus dies, she is eighty-nine years old. 

When Taako forgives her, says it out loud that he forgives her, she is eighty-nine years old and she is crying over her friend’s dead body.

“You don’t need to,” she says, “You really do—“  
  
“You’re gone in a week, pumpkin” he says, “Didn’t want you to have too much unfinished business.”  
  
“You know how?”  
  
“Heart attack. It’s not the worst way to go out.”  
  
“I’m aware.”

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t tell Krav that Lup’s telling me these things.”  
  
“I won’t.”  
  
“Our little secret.”  
  
“Our little secret.”  
  
And her shoulders loosen.

 

l.

She goes down quiet, not wanting to die screaming. She's the second of seven to die, and she is old—too old to have lived this long, but she's lived despite that.

Lup takes her by the arms as her spirit leaves her body, kisses her forehead, says, “I got you, babe.”

She ends up in a cabin with Magnus and his wife and their dogs, and every night, she watches the souls pass by in the river.

She has helped, she decides, she has helped the world and the universe.

And perhaps it was her destiny to do so.

**Author's Note:**

> violetbeach dot libsyn dot com if you want more happy lesbians from me. it's a fiction podcast.
> 
> please review! i love you!


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